Friday, September 26, 2014

I am addicted to Ellen Hopkins’ books. For those of
you who have never read anything by Ellen Hopkins, you should be warned that
her novels are controversial. Her first Young Adult book Crank is about her daughter’s drug addiction to meth. She also
writes about teenage prostitution, suicide, bullying, and other divisive
subjects. Needless to say, schools and parents have tried to ban her books from
coming in contact with a student or child. I am enthralled by her decision to
write about these topics that some authors wouldn’t dare to touch with a ten
foot pole, so I looked forward to reading her newest novel Rumble. The characters were believable; the plot was tense. So why
did I feel so disappointed?

InRumble,
I was introduced to Matthew (he prefers “Matt”) who is head over heels for a
pretty blonde girl, but then again what teenage boy isn’t? Her name is Hayden
and although she is his girlfriend, he feels that she is becoming a stranger to
him. On top of worrying about his relationship, Matt is also dealing with the
loss of his brother who killed himself after being bullied because he was
homosexual. Matt seeks comfort from Hayden but is disappointed to find out that
she would rather spend time with her “church going” friends, who he feels judge
him and come in between his relationship with Hayden. Matt is an atheist who
believes that death ends everything. Throughout Rumble,he is trying to
deal with forgiving those he feels played a part in his brother’s death as well
as forgiving himself. He also begins to question some of his own beliefs.

As I mentioned before, the characters are
believable. They deal with typical teenage problems such as bullying and
relationship problems. The characters met my standards for what I expect from
an Ellen Hopkins book. I also found myself unable to put down the book. It is
around 550 pages and I read it in three days. Of course, Ellen Hopkins writes
her stories using poetry, so the book is probably really half the size. (There
goes my bragging right.) I guess I was most disappointed with the climax of the
story. When Matt is finally having that “coming-of-age” moment, the story feels
rushed. I wanted to know more about Matt’s relationships with his parents and
his girlfriend. Then again, Hopkins is known for writing sequels, so perhaps in
a few years my questions will be answered.

As far as Matt’s acceptance, or lack of acceptance,
towards the unknown after death, well, I feel that part was realistic and easy
to appreciate. I had empathy for Matt and I am a sucker for a guy with a broken
heart. As far as Hayden goes, I wanted her to get hit by a bus. (I am NOT a
sucker for a conniving back stabber.) I would recommend this book to lovers of
Young Adult books and/or readers who like to read about the true encounters
that a teenager may face. While Rumble
wasn’t my favorite Ellen Hopkins book, it isn’t the worst YA book (or adult
book, for that matter!) I have read.

If you’re intrigued by Hopkins, I highly recommend
Identical and Burned.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

This week’s Nevermore began with a discussion of Kim
Barnes’ A Country Called Home. The
book was recommended because the author is good at setting up coincidences and
the effect of those coincidences. The story takes place in the 1960’s in a
rural town in Idaho. Thomas and his wife Helen seek opportunities in their new
hometown, while Helen hopes to get away from what she knows in Connecticut. The
book’s ending is realistic. As our reader said, “Not everyone gets a
happy ending.” The four main characters are immersed in life and you will be
intrigued by their situations. This book will be available at the library soon.

I
Always Loved Youby Robin Olivei interested another
Nevermore reader. It’s a fictional account of Mary Cassatt. American Mary moves
to Paris after the Civil War in hopes of becoming an artist. When her artwork
is rejected, her father begs her to move home and find a husband before it is
too late. She is later introduced to Edgar Degas and from moment her life is
never the same. The book makes readers question, What would have happened to her if she had never met him? and makes
readers think of art as something other than a commodity.

The
Spymistressby Jennifer Chiaverini is a new novel
that one of our Nevermore readers recently finished. The setting is in
Richmond, Virginia during the Civil War. The reader states that she learned new
facts about the Civil War such as there were approximately 16,400 prisoners in
Richmond during the war. The book is about a Southerner who is for the union
and if that isn’t interesting enough, her sister-in-law is for the Confederacy.
One of our other readers suggested that if she enjoyed The Spymistressthen she should read Mary Chestnut’s Diary.

Last week, Charles Frazier’s Nightwoods was mentioned in Nevermore and inspired another
reader to check out the book. Although she is not finished, she is captivated
by what she has read so far.

Our most discussed book was Jo Nesbo’s The Son, a novel about a teenager in
prison who is blamed for crimes that he doesn’t commit just so the Wardens do
not have to investigate. The book is realistic fiction and can be compared to The Girl with the Dragon Tattooseries
and the Wallander series. The reader
said the plot was good right to the very end and is one of the better “Nordic
crime” books she has read. A Nevermore member stated that she believes most of
Nesbo’s plots are convoluted, but she reader of The Sonsaid she didn’t think she would feel the same way about
this novel because the plot was so good.

Last week’s recommended memoir The World According to Bobby James Bowen was picked up by another
reader. One of our members read it and gave her opinion. We learn that although
Bowen isn’t a saint in the book, we can tell how much he has overcome.
Relocating from Australia to London for his aspirations to become a singer,
Bowen finds himself homeless after his music gig has failed him. He becomes
addicted to drugs, including heroin. The reviewer stated this book is a quick
read and provides an insightful dimension to street life.

The next book was Homer’s Odysseyabout a blind kitten that was adopted by Gwen
Cooper. The reader liked this book but felt that the book focused more on the
author than the cats. A Nevermore member stated that she felt the same way
aboutDewey: The Small-Town Library Cat
Who Touched the World.

Another member is still reading The Triggerby Tim Butcher which tells the story of Garvilo
Princip, the young man who shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, sparking
the First World War. The reader is finding the book difficult to get through
because she wants to get to the facts. (Apparently the author is longwinded.) She
did say that she was interested in the background of the story, so she would
continue to read it until she got her answers. It’s a timely book because this
year marks the 100th anniversary of WWI.

Monday, September 22, 2014

Author Tom
Robbins claims that Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life is
not an autobiography or a memoir, but just a collection of true stories he has
been telling the women in his life for years.(And trust me, there are a lot of women.)The short chapters certainly read like a
memoir and are even arranged roughly chronologically.Robbins is better known for his fiction
writing and his experiences in the artsy/hippie/drug counterculture of the
1960's and 1970's.

While I enjoyed
the entire book, I think the early chapters where Robbins describes his antics
in Blowing Rock, North Carolina are the most amusing.In this tourist town, he claims to have
successfully sold the sunsuit off his own back at the precocious age of four,
in exchange for a nickel to buy an orange Popsicle.As the chapters rolled on, I certainly
believed that young boy was fully worthy of his nickname: “Tommy Rotten”.

Robbins had an
early obsession with the circus, and even talked his parents into letting him
go on the road with a show the summer he was nine years old.The circus company was perfectly willing to
have another worker to care for the animals in exchange for a seat beside the
ring.Unfortunately, Robbins only had
the chance to shovel monkey manure till the next town, whereupon his father
came to pick him up, urged on by a worried mother.His circus days may have been over, but his
lifelong urge to explore has continued.

Robbins includes
his long history with a wide variety of women almost as an aside to the
business of the stories he is telling.And this is a really long history, since he's about 82 now.He has three sons from previous marriages or
relationships, but when he writes about meeting Alexa, the woman he has been
married to since 1987, sparks fly off the page and it's enough to make anyone
believe in true love.

From North Carolina
to Virginia to Washington state, with an Air Force detour overseas during the
Korean War, Robbins (as he tells it) has had a very interesting life.Since the 1970's he has written eight novels,
none of which I have read, but which are certainly on my to-read list now.I was simply delighted by some of the
individual sentences within the tales in this volume.He has an artful way with words that
compelled me to keep reading.If this
has piqued your interest, drop everything and head to the library for some Tom
Robbins today.

Friday, September 19, 2014

Homer’s
Odyssey: A Fearless Feline Tale, or How I Learned About Love and Life with a
Blind Wonder Catby Gwen Cooper*

Reviewed by Meygan

*Not
to be mistaken for the epic Greek poem, although I did feel incredibly smug
when people admired the way I read “The Odyssey” for fun.

According to the ASPCA, there are ninety million
cats residing in approximately thirty-eight million homes in the United States.
That is ninety million novels that could have been written, published, and possibly
become a bestseller. So what makes Cooper’s story about her frisky solid black
cat, Homer, any different? Well, first of all, Homer is blind. What’s so special about a blind cat? you
ask yourself. That’s when Cooper’s humor and vivid details come in to piece
together the story.

Cooper wasn’t
looking to adopt a third cat when her veterinarian called her about a two-week
old kitten that had lost his sight due to an infection. Cooper questioned, just
like most of us cat people do, How many
cats can I have until people start thinking I am crazy? But as soon as she
saw Homer, she fell in love. And by the second chapter, I had fallen madly in
love with Homer as well. (I do need to mention that I DO love every kitten and
cat that I encounter. So much, in fact, that I believe my husband is currently
writing a contract with a lawyer stating that under no circumstances am I
allowed to bring home anything else that has a mouth to feed. I wish I were
kidding.) Homer is lively to say the least, especially for a cat that sees
nothing but darkness. But Homer quickly learns his whereabouts to the many
homes he is introduced to. (He especially becomes acquainted with the words,
“No, Homer!”) The first chapters are mostly about the many adventures of Homer
and his two “sisters”, Vashti and Scarlett. If I had to title these chapters, I
would name them Homer and the Case of the Buzzing Fly; Homer Learns Not to Jump
So High; Homer and the Case of the Burglar; Homer, Vashti, and Scarlet and the
“Something Stinks, Who Done It?” Mystery.

Although I loved hearing about Homer, Vashti, and
Scarlett, I have mixed feelings about the ending of the book. Don’t get me
wrong—I know that Cooper had to talk about herself every once in a while to
lead readers to Homer’s next extravaganza, but I was disappointed in the
ending. The first twenty chapters or so were superb. Cooper writes with such
honesty with a hint of humor that will captivate readers. Then the narrative
takes to turn.

Throughout the book, Cooper plays with the idea of
meeting Mr. Right, falling in love, and living happily ever after. She
expresses the fear that this might never happen. Cooper is sweet and hilarious
and someone that readers will want to find true love. Well, that day finally
came for Cooper, and I couldn’t have been more disappointed in her choice.

Do I think Cooper “used” her blind cat to gain
attention for this novel? No, honestly, I do not. At least, I don’t think that
was her intention. I do not want to give away any major spoilers, but Homer’s
disposition changes towards the end and although I realize he is no longer the
spunky kitten he was once, I believe the major change is because of Cooper’s
love interest. There were parts of the book towards the end that made me so
upset that I felt like ripping the book in half. However, the copy I was reading
belonged to the library; needless to say, Cooper’s book was unharmed. I guess
in the end I wanted more cats and less Gwen Cooper. Was that too much to ask
for?

Please don’t let my review of the ending deter you
from reading the book. Cooper is an admirable writer. She’s witty, gets to the
point, uses great sentence structure and vocabulary choice, and will probably
make you want to adopt a cat after finishingHomer’s Odyssey. (No more cats,
I repeat my husband’s words.)

Unlike Old Yeller
*spoiler alert*, Homer’s Odysseyends
on a happy note with

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

The ever-lively Nevermore opened with a discussion of The
Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter.The book was first published in the late 1970s as a memoir of a part
Cherokee boy growing up in the Smoky Mountains region during the 1920s and 30s.
Orphaned at a young age, Little Tree was sent to live with his grandparents who
taught him how to live simply, respecting the Earth and its creatures.It was
a warm and loving story laced with humor, mountain lore, and more than a dash
of spirituality. As the book grew in
popularity, it was claimed that the author was actually Asa Carter, a
segregationist who wrote speeches for George Wallace.This brings up all sorts of questions.Can a reader separate the author from the
work?Who has the right to tell the
stories of a minority? Does knowing that the story is fiction and not memoir
change the work itself? And what of Asa himself—was this his way of conning the
public or did he have a true conversion? As usual, there were plenty of answers but no
consensus but then that’s the fun of Nevermore!

Another book with a mountain setting is Charles Frazier’s Nightwoods.Set in North Carolina in the 1950s, it’s the
story of a solitary woman who is living in an abandoned lodge as a
caretaker.Her life is upended when she
becomes the guardian of her sister’s children after the sister is
murdered.The book was compared to Lee
Smith’s but the writing is darker.In
short, this isn’t a happy book but then not all good books are happy ones.Frazier is best known for the novel Cold
Mountain.

The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress is a debut novel
by Ariel Lawhon.It’s a fictionalized
version ofthe Judge Crater case which
mesmerized the nation back in 1930 when the famous (or infamous) judge got into
a cab and simply disappeared.Like the Jimmy
Hoffa case decades later, theories abounded as to what happened. (No one ever dug up Giants Stadium looking for Carter, however.) Lawhon spins an intriguing tale of political
corruption, scandalous affairs, and the streets of New York in the Jazz
Age.Our reviewer enjoyed the book,
especially the author’s notes as to what was factual and what was
speculation.

How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking
by Jordan Ellenberg really impressed one of our Nevermore readers to the point
that he brought in visual aids to illustrate some points.The idea is that mathematics is being taught
incorrectly.Instead of making it all
about memorizing formulas, it should be about the philosophy behind math and
how math actually touches our lives in many ways every day.The book is fun and thoughtful, showing us
how much math is real and not an abstract concept.

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About Me

The BPL Bookblog reviewers include:
Ambrea, who reads widely and who brings a fresh perspective to any review;
Christy H. who often likes a walk on the spooky side;
Kristin, the Eclectic Bibliophile who can help you find the perfect book;
and Jeanne. When we figure out what she does, we'll let you know.
BBL stands for "Bookblog of the Bristol Library." It also stands for "Be Back Later"-- as in, "Be back later, we're reading."